DALLAS — With the pending sales of substantially all its retail sites, Sunoco LP has begun shifting its focus away from retail and toward wholesale fuels distribution.

CEO Bob Owens, who will retire Dec. 31, said during a recent earnings call that the company is “on track to substantially exit the company-operated retail convenience-store space within the continental United States by the end of 2017.” He gave a status update of three transactions that will help Sunoco move toward this goal.

Owens expects the sale of about 1,100 company-operated c-stores, as well as the trademarks and intellectual property of the Laredo Taco Company, to Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven to close by the end of fourth-quarter 2017. He said the deal is in typical and customary regulatory discussions with the Federal Trade Commission.

Owens also expects the sale of Sunoco’s West Texas assets, which includes approximately 180 c-stores, to close around the same time. He said Sunoco is in the process of completing advanced-stage discussions with final bidders.

As for the sale of about 100 of Sunoco’s retail assets through NRC Realty & Capital Advisors LLC, Chicago, Owens said NRC has sold or is under contract to sell approximately 35% to 40% of the initial 100 sites and is actively marketing roughly 20% more. About 30% of the original 100 sites migrated to 7-Eleven and another 10% migrated to the West Texas sales process.

Sunoco will not completely exit retailing, the company has said. It “will continue with a platform for the iconic Sunoco fuel brand and successful APlus [c-store retail] franchise.” There are about 400 APlus stores, according to company reports. Also, Sunoco will maintain ownership of Aloha Petroleum, an integrated, stand-alone operation within Sunoco with 54 retail locations in Hawaii.

In earnings, Sunoco LP saw its revenue increase 13% to $2.4 billion in second-quarter 2017. Revenue was $2.1 billion in second-quarter 2016.

Dallas-based Sunoco said the increase was the result of the average wholesale selling price of fuel being 14 cents per gallon higher than last year, in addition to more wholesale gallons sold. Total wholesale gallons sold increased 4.4% from 1.316 billion in second-quarter 2016 to 1.374 billion in second-quarter 2017.

Strong fuel margins also contributed to an increase of $56 million to Sunoco’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization), which totaled $220 million for the quarter.

That said, total gross profit declined to $165 million, compared with $227 million in second-quarter 2016. Sunoco said this was a result of lower wholesale motor-fuel gross profits.

As of June 30, Sunoco operated 1,353 convenience stores and retail fuel outlets along the East Coast, in the Southwest and in Hawaii. Third-party wholesale customers and sites totaled 7,937.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Two East Coast states are about to test a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax, meant to either supplement or replace a gasoline tax.

The I-95 Corridor Coalition, an alliance of transportation agencies, toll authorities and public safety organizations for East Coast states from Maine to Florida, will begin testing a VMT tax in Delaware and Pennsylvania, reported WTOP. The VMT model levies a charge based on how many miles a person drives. A 2012 report conducted for the I-95 Corridor Coalition determined that the gas tax is unsustainable as a road-funding mechanism over the long term for East Coast states, and found the VMT model as “a primary candidate to replace or supplement motor fuel taxes” because it directly charges drivers who use the road.

On the West Coast, Oregon has been testing the VMT model for more than a decade in two separate pilot programs. Volunteers pay a 1.5-mile-per-gallon fee in lieu of the state’s gas tax. Mileage is determined either with a device installed in the participants’ vehicles or through a GPS-based system.

The I-95 Corridor Coalition project would include a three-month pilot in 2018 involving 50 vehicles in Delaware and Pennsylvania, according to program contractor CH2M Hill. In the process, the project would examine how to apply mileage fees on toll roads, how to calculate miles for out-of-state drivers and how to transfer payments from state to state.

The $1.16 million project is funded by a grant from the Federal Highway Administration, with drivers, state agencies, trucking and tolling groups providing feedback for the final report.

“We’re not endorsing this … but we want to make sure we explore it,” Patricia Hendren, executive director of the I-95 Corridor Coalition, College Park, Md., told WTOP.  Assuming the pilot is successful and the I-95 Corridor Coalition wins more grant money, a broader pilot could take place.

“A larger pilot gets into how we address pretty sticky issues, like privacy, technology and crossing state lines—basically what something like this would really look like in practice,” said Hendren.

NEWTON, Mass. — Paytronix Systems, a reward-program software provider, has expanded its rewards platform with integrations to point-of-sale (POS) systems Gilbarco Passport, NCR Radiant and Verifone Commander, the most prevalent POS solutions for convenience stores.

Convenience-store chain Yesway was first to market with the new platform. The Des Moines, Iowa-based company built its recently launched rewards program using Paytronix Rewards, which integrates directly with Yesway’s Gilbarco and NCR Radiant POS systems.

“One of our core requirements for the Yesway Rewards programs was a robust analytics and segmentation platform,” said Darrin Samaha, vice president and brand manager, Yesway. “Now that we are underway with our program, without question, the Paytronix platform provides us with out-of-the-box marketing tools for our organization needs. We are able to leverage the analytics platform and the Paytronix Data Insights team to better understand our customers and know when and where to help them to extract more revenue from the customer journey.”

With the preconfigured Paytronix integrations, convenience stores can implement rewards programs with the following capabilities:

• Customer identification: Brands have multiple options to tie a customer’s account to the rewards program using a plastic card, mobile check-in, or guest lookup via telephone number at the POS.
• Real-time accrual and redemption: Points accrue and rewards are redeemed in the moment a transaction is completed at the POS.
• Customer-engagement tools: C-stores can message customers on multiple channels including email, push, pull, and SMS with tailored communications triggered by POS activity.
• Reporting and data analysis: Consumer POS behavior insights and reporting capabilities facilitate a better understanding of each customer and the delivery of relevant offers, reduce cannibalized sales and accurately report outstanding liability.
• Check-level purchase data: The system ties granular purchase behavior from the POS to each individual reward program member.

“POS integration is the lifeblood of the Paytronix platform. It connects the data being collected in the field to our powerful backend system where marketers employ a one-to-one marketing strategy,” said Michelle Tempesta, head of marketing, Paytronix. “Our ability to pull data from and push it to the POS changes the customer experience by making it more relevant and personal in the store, thereby establishing a deeper bond between the customer and the brand.”

Newton, Mass.-based Paytronix’s proprietary guest engagement platform helps more than 300 restaurant and retail chains manage and grow more than $18 billion in guest spend.

CSP has been highlighting new convenience stores in a feature titled Grand Opening for more than five years. Some retailers blew out expectations by building stores of unprecedented proportion, while others turned their retail sites into veritable restaurants serving food well outside the norm.

Here’s a look at 25 of the best new-store designs we’ve featured since 2012.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appears to be performing a complicated balancing act with electronic cigarettes, at once easing rules by delaying deadlines for manufacturers to apply for new-product approval while also tightening its grip by announcing a new education campaign designed to deter youth from vaping.

The FDA announced Aug. 8 that it would pursue what it called “a strategic, new public-health education campaign aimed at discouraging the use of e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (or ENDS) by kids.”

In a press release, the agency said it plans this fall to expand its “The Real Cost” public-education campaign to include messaging to teens about the dangers of using these products, while developing a full-scale campaign to launch in 2018. It is the first time the FDA will be using public-health education to specifically target youth use of e-cigarettes or other ENDS.

The announcement comes about a week after the FDA said it would delay the August 2018 deadline for manufacturers of ENDS products to submit FDA-approval applications, pushing the date back to August 2022. It’s a move that many in the tobacco industry saw as positive.

“While we pursue a policy that focuses on addressing the role that nicotine plays in keeping smokers addicted to combustible cigarettes, and to help move those who cannot quit nicotine altogether onto less harmful products, we will also continue to work vigorously to keep all tobacco products out of the hands of kids,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the FDA.

Addressing the schedule it announced in July, the agency said it will put nicotine and the issue of addiction at the center of its efforts.

“This policy aims to strike a careful balance between the regulation of all tobacco products and the opportunity to encourage development of innovative tobacco products that may be less dangerous than combustible cigarettes,” the agency said in a statement. “But, importantly, the approach also continues to focus on the need to reduce the access and appeal of all tobacco products to youth, including e-cigarettes and other ENDS, and maintains all of the existing regulations that currently apply to these products.”

AUBURN, Calif. — Flyers Energy will exit the retail business with the sale of its 39 convenience stores to Andeavor Corp.

Established in 1979, Flyers is a third-generation family-owned business with stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Managing Partner Walt Dwelle said the time was right for he and his brothers and other family to narrow the scope of the company’s business, but he didn’t rule out a return to c-stores someday.

“Refiners are looking for strategies to distribute their products, so the business climate was right for us to sell our retail stores,” Dwelle said. “We continue to grow in commercial products, including renewable energy, and are still acquiring other companies when the deal is right. That may include companies with retail stores in the future.”

Flyers Energy sold all of its 39 c-stores and gas-station locations to the newly renamed Andeavor Corp., formerly Tesoro Corp., as reported in a CSP Daily News Flash.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Andeavor will change some of the locations to new fuel brands, including Mobil, Exxon, Arco or Shell. The agreement allows the buyer up to 12 months to rename the newly acquired stations.

“This [deal] will further strengthen our integrated business by expanding our retail presence in Northern California by adding approximately 6,000 barrels per day of branded sales,” Andeavor Chairman and CEO Greg Goff said during the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call. “We expect the sites to contribute $10 million of annual net earnings and about $25 million of annual EBITDA.”

Auburn, Calif.-based Flyers started with the purchase of seven independent gas stations in Northern California. “Retail is where we began and it was a difficult decision to give it up, but it’s a relatively small part of our business today,” said Dwelle.

In July, Flyers completed the acquisition of lubricants operations in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., from Western Refining, which also was recently acquired by Andeavor. Flyers Energy expects to increase its volume of lubricants sold from 1 million gallons in 2010 to nearly 19 million gallons next year with the help of an exclusive deal with ExxonMobil and through a series of acquisitions of petroleum distributors in California, Nevada and Arizona, the company said.

Newly renamed, San Antonio-based Andeavor is an integrated marketing, logistics and refining company with more than 3,200 gas stations and convenience stores under multiple fuel brands, including Arco, SuperAmerica, Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Tesoro, USA Gasoline and Giant.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — There are now between 475,000 and 500,000 operational ATMs in the U.S. market, according to data from the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA).

ATMIA calls the step a “significant milepost” after a list of setbacks including the recovering economy, updates from Windows and the EMV migration.

“These numbers confirm what we have suspected in recent months,” said ATMIA U.S. Executive Director David Tente. “There is growing recognition of the important role that ATMs play in our payments system and, alongside of it, in a new wave of branch transformation that is sweeping through the banking industry.”

New functionality is coming to many ATMs. Financial institutions large and small are facilitating prestaged withdrawals and deploying contactless technologies. Tens of thousands of independent ATMs now provide person-to-person money transfer capabilities. And new bank branches are more likely to be smaller and depend more substantially on the use of advanced function ATM terminals.

Looking even further into the future, ATMIA asserts that ATM deployment companies and manufacturers are coming together to embrace the next generation of ATMs, which could rely on app-based platforms for an enhanced user experience, improved security, and greater interoperability. All of these factors could collectively drive accelerating growth in the ATM channel. ATMIA has launched a Global ATM Innovation portal on its website, which includes the Industry Blueprint for Next Generation ATMs and other resources related to ATM innovation.

ATMIA is a nonprofit trade association representing the entire global ATM industry. ATMIA serves more than 10,000 members from more than 690 participating companies in 70 countries spanning the worldwide ATM market, including financial institutions, independent ATM deployment companies, equipment manufacturers, processors and a plethora of ATM service and value-added solution providers.

CHICAGO – Voting is now open for CSP’s 14th annual Retailer Choice Best New Product Contest. CSP magazine, the leading media brand serving the convenience industry, announced the finalists this week; the complete list is below.

The editors of CSP and Convenience Store Products magazines identified all finalists from the list of products nominated by c-store industry members. Now it’s up to c-store retailers to select the winners of this coveted award. Retailers can fill out a ballot now through Sept. 8 at CSPDailyNews.com/BestNewProductsContest.

• Click here to see last year’s winning products.

“CSP’s New Products Contest represents so much more than new products,” said Abbey Lewis, editor-in-chief of Convenience Store Products. “It represents consumer and retail trends, and the endless creativity and innovative thinking of our supplier community. We are as eager as anyone to find out how retailers vote.”

The group of finalists represents new products that were introduced into the c-store market between Aug. 1, 2016, and May 26, 2017.

Winners will be announced and receive their awards at the NACS Show in October. They will also be mentioned in an article that will appear online at www.CSPDailyNews.com and in the December 2017 issue of CSP magazine.

The full list of finalists:

Winsight LLC is a business-to-business media, event, data and information company specializing in the convenience-retailing, restaurant and noncommercial foodservice industries. Winsight has an extensive media portfolio with leading publications, including CSP, Convenience Store Products, Restaurant Business, FoodService Director and now Grocery Headquarters as of June 2017. Winsight Media offers a suite of digital products, including websites, e-newsletters, webinars, video, apps and custom marketing solutions. The Winsight Events group produces exclusive large-scale executive-level conferences, including Restaurant Leadership, Global Restaurant Leadership, FARE Conference, Outlook Leadership, Convenience Retailing University, FSTEC, Restaurant Trends & Directions and MenuDirections. Winsight also owns Technomic Inc., the leading provider of market information and advisory services for the food industry. For more information on Winsight and its brands, go to www.winsightmedia.com or www.technomic.com.

LA CROSSE, Wis. — A day after a legal notice suggested Kwik Trip Inc. would lay off hundreds of employees with its purchase of the PDQ Food Stores chain, the convenience-store retailer found itself reassuring the existing staff of those stores that the company would hire “any qualified PDQ co-worker” to continue on with the new ownership.

Several news sources, including the Wisconsin State Journal, reported the layoffs Aug. 8. Kwik Trip quickly clarified that the Wisconsin Business Closing and Mass Layoff notice it filed Aug. 7 “does not impact the possibility of PDQ co-workers joining the Kwik Trip team.”

The notice suggested 313 employees would be let go. Kwik Trip says the notice is only a legal formality because PDQ will no longer own or operate the stores.

“It is Kwik Trip’s desire to hire any qualified PDQ co-worker, both full time and part time,” said John McHugh, director of public relations for Kwik Trip. “Because each store will require more co-workers than are currently employed, it will be necessary to hire new co-workers as well. So as to continue PDQ’s strong tradition of great customer service, we hope that many co-workers will choose to remain at their current location.”

Kwik Trip added that current PDQ co-workers will get credit for their length of service with PDQ to determine vacation benefits and 401(k)-plan eligibility. Traditional wait periods for benefit coverage will also be waived for those co-workers, the company said.

Kwik Trip announced on July 19 it will acquire 34 PDQ Food Stores. The deal is expected to close in October, and beginning the week of Oct. 9, 2017, the PDQ stores will be closed for 24 hours to conduct an inventory count and move in the appropriate Kwik Trip equipment, supplies and merchandise, the company said.

“Our family is committed to owning and growing the company for another 50 years,” Mark Zietlow, real-estate manager and third-generation owner of Kwik Trip, said in July. “Kwik Trip and our family are committed to providing good-paying jobs for all of our current and future co-workers. With the acquisition of PDQ and future remodel of the PDQ locations, we anticipate adding more than 1,000 jobs.”

Founded in 1965 in Eau Claire, Wis., Kwik Trip Inc. is one of the largest independently held convenience-store chains in the United States. Today, Kwik Trip owns and operates more than 570 stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. The La Crosse, Wis.-based chain ranked No. 15 in CSP’s 2017 Top 202 list of the largest c-store chains in the United States.

PDQ is an employee-owned company based in Middleton, Wis. Its assets include 34 company-operated convenience stores located in Southeastern Wisconsin. It ranked No. 174 in CSP’s 2017 Top 202 list.

MINNEAPOLIS — During 2017, legislative bills to raise cigarette- and/or tobacco-product excise taxes were considered by 22 state legislatures. Oftentimes, more than one bill to increase these excise taxes was introduced in a given state, and the bills would have different amounts by which the current tax rates would be raised.

Since 2017 is not an election year, the adoption of higher excise taxes is more likely. But only Delaware and Rhode Island have enacted higher cigarette- and/or tobacco-tax increases, so far.

In Delaware, the cigarette tax has been raised by 50 cents a pack to a new tax rate of $2.10 per pack, the other tobacco product (OTP) tax was increased from 15% to 30%, and the tax on moist snuff was raised from 54 cents to 92 cents.

In Rhode Island, the cigarette tax is being raised 50 cents per pack to a new rate of $4.25 per pack. This cigarette tax rate is the second highest in the country, next to New York State at $4.35 per pack.

In Minnesota, two excise-tax changes were enacted into law that are positive for the industry. The excise-tax cap on premium cigars was reduced from $3.50 per cigar to 50 cents per cigar. Also, Minnesota law was changed to repeal the automatic annual increase in the cigarette tax. Each Jan. 1, the state cigarette tax increased automatically by a rate equivalent to the current consumer price index (CPI). This automatic tax inflator will no longer be in effect.

The other states where cigarette- and/or tobacco-tax increase bills were introduced but not adopted include Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. States that have year-round legislative sessions that still have tax increase bills pending include Massachusetts and New York.